


Heartless

by merlinemrys



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: 5x13, Angst, Episode Tag, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-14
Updated: 2013-04-14
Packaged: 2017-12-08 13:09:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/761670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merlinemrys/pseuds/merlinemrys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Hunith's son comes home, only to find that his own is already lost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heartless

**Author's Note:**

> i kind of wrote this for [internet mom/hunith](http://hunith.tumblr.com) because we were talking about merlin and it got sad as merlin things inevitably do. oops. thanks to beth and jessi for betas.

The morning before Merlin came home to Ealdor, two birds dropped down dead from the trees in Hunith's garden.

There was no explanation, no cause of death, no marks on their bodies; just two dead birds in the middle of the field, bodies stiff and cold, legs sticking straight up into the sky.

Hunith felt unsettled for no reason she could name. She dug a pit in the yard and buried the birds there, hoping that it would ease her mind.

It didn't.

She returned to her house, trying to sweep out some of the dust that had accumulated in the corners and trying not to think of Merlin in the process. It'd been weeks since she'd learned that Queen Guinevere had lifted the ban on magic and months since she'd heard that Arthur was dead and years since she'd seen Merlin last. She missed and worried about him so much that sometimes she feared that she'd die of heartache; she never had, and in her loneliest nights she couldn't understand if that was a curse or a blessing.

In the evening a knock came at the door. Hunith went to answer it, dinner left unfinished on the table.

Merlin stood on her doorstep, face worn and haggard and aged beyond his years but blue eyes wide and telling as ever.

"Oh," Hunith breathed, and Merlin fell into her with a hiccup, curling his arms around her and clinging to her like a lifeline.

"Mum," he whispered, body shaking with sobs, "Gods, Mummy, I've messed up, I'm sorry, Mum, I--"

"Shh," Hunith soothed, feeling tears trailing down her own face as she rubbed her hands up and down his back. "It's going to be all right, honey, shh, your Mum is here."

Merlin buried his face in her neck--he had to bend down just to reach it--and trembled in Hunith's arms. "I couldn't save them," he rasped. "I couldn't save either of them, I couldn't save any of them, I couldn't--I couldn't save him."

Hunith pressed her cheek to his hair silently, dread gnawing her gut at the thought of who the others might have been and the burden of how many lives had been placed on her son's head.

"Come inside," she murmured, kissing the top of his head. Merlin snuffled and drew back, nodding weakly, shuffling in after her and closing the door behind them. He slumped down at the kitchen table, looking for all the world like the little boy he'd been at six when he tripped in the river and accidentally killed a snail, running home with palms and knees skinned and nose runny and tears staining his face. Hunith watched him with a mixture of sadness and fondness, caught between how much Merlin had changed and how much he had stayed the same.

"Why don't you eat up and then get some rest, and we'll talk tomorrow?" she asked quietly, puttering about the kitchen to make another bowl of porridge for Merlin. He nodded quietly, tracing golden dragons on the wooden table.

It broke Hunith's heart just to see him.

//

Merlin was already up and about when Hunith woke in the morning. There was a bowl of fruit at her seat, filled with strawberries and apples and honeyed plums that couldn't possibly be from her own backyard. She raised a reprimanding eyebrow at Merlin--learned from the best, Gaius did--and Merlin smiled sheepishly, shrugging his shoulders.

Hunith studied him as she sat down at the table and started to eat. He seemed--broken, almost, as if something in him had shattered and he'd try to put it back together, he really had, but there was nothing in the world that could be strong enough to fix him again.

Merlin caught her eye and stuck out his tongue, and for a single moment he looked so young and carefree that Hunith felt relief flood through her veins and she thought that maybe, maybe everything was still okay.

And then Merlin's eyes dropped back down and his smile just vanished, evaporated into the air as if it'd never been there at all.

"Father's dead, Mum," he whispered, dropping into a chair and tangling his fingers in his hair. "I know I should've told you earlier,but you were just sick and I was afraid and scared you'd hate me and I just--"

Merlin's breath caught and he took a tremulous breath before he continued on, voice raspy and clogged. 

"I couldn't even stand to--what I'd done, I'd killed him, it was my fault, I--"

Hunith felt her world freeze and start again in just a few seconds; she immediately rose and went to her son, pushing away the ache in her own chest and wrapping her arms around him as if she could protect him from all the horrors in the world.

It was a bit late for that, she supposed.

"I--we--we'd found him, in the forest, and I hadn't even realized he was my father and then I  _did_ and when the bandit killed him I couldn't stop them, all this stupid fucking magic and I couldn't do a  _thing_ \--"

"Stop that, Merlin," Hunith reprimanded gently, wiping at Merlin's eyes before the tears could truly fall. He sniffled miserably and curled in on himself. Hunith had a feeling he'd been bottling this up for months, years, without letting anyone know.

"It should have been me," he said miserably, eyes downcast. "I'm sorry, Mum."

Hunith sighed and smiled at him softly. "You know I could never hate you, Merlin, you're my son. It's not your fault. No, don't give me that derisive little pout, young man, I know you and I know your father and you two are both beautiful, wonderful, awful self-sacrificing heroes. You would have saved him if you could, I know you would've, but there are some things out of your control, dear. You can't help it."

Merlin looked just as wretched as before but he nodded anyway, angrily brushing away the tears welling again in his eyes with the back of his hand.

Pale sunlight started to filter in through the windows and the doorways, filling up the dusty air in Hunith's little home.

"And Arthur?" she prompted quietly, after a lull of quiet. Merlin choked on a sob, looking away from her with the most terrible and bitter smile on his face that Hunith couldn't help but feel a pang of resentment, unwarranted as it was, at the man who had left her Merlin so sad and broken and lost.

"He's gone," he said quietly, and no more than that.

Hunith sat by Merlin for a few moments more before excusing herself to the restroom; once outside of his sight, she collapsed against the wall, sinking down to the floor as her shoulders started to heave.

Gods. Balinor, gone. Merlin, so utterly devastated and hurt that Hunith couldn't even imagine him ever getting better. Oh Gods, what had they done to deserve all of this?

She rose unsteadily to her feet, staggering towards the bathroom, and vomited into the chamberpot.

//

Merlin only stayed for a week before Hunith found him staring restlessly at the skies, sometimes towards Camelot, sometimes towards Avalon, sometimes towards somewhere or something or someone that Hunith couldn't see.

She didn't let herself cry when he left, holding him close to her and breathing him in.

"You'll always have a home here," she whispered into his shoulder, pulling back to regard him solemnly. "Home is where the heart is, Merline remember that."

Merlin's smile turned brittle, and oh, Hunith had come to hate that smile.

"Then I'm not sure I have a home anywhere, Mum," he murmured in return, letting her kiss his forehead before he turned to leave.

Hunith watched him go, her own heart feeling as if it would splinter under the slightest impact, and wondered if perhaps he was right.


End file.
